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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1850
arose respecting the boundary which we declared in 1836. Texas then conceded to the United States the right to settle the question of boundary with Mexico, but she did not concede the right, after the acquisition of all the territory which the United States acquired from Mexico, of adjusting it between Mexico and the United States. The United States was the agent of T'exas, and as such acquired limits beyond the boundary which Texas claimed, and consequently secured to her all she had assumed for herself. If, however, this bill should pass, it will not be decisive with Texas, as the subject will be referred to her Legislature to judge of the fitness of disposing of this territory or retaining it, as she may think proper. It imposes no obligation upon Texas, it in- fringes none of her rights, it coerces her to no submission to the action of Congress, but it recognizes all the rights which she originally possessed. Gentlemen say this is an indignity, and indeed the honorable gentleman from Florida was so kind as to remark that it would be prostituting Texas if she submitted to such degradation. I will, with great deference to the honorable gentleman, assure him that I think all Texas will return him thanks, and in the name of Texas I return him my thanks, for becoming the special guardian of her purity and her honor ; and I hope it will suffer no danger from his friendly interposition. The gentleman has exhibited a degree of solicitude that would have been favorable to Texas at one period, when she was surrounded by temptation and difficulties, and when she was wooed on all sides, and was in a situation to yield to solicitations. The honorable gentleman then steps forward and exhorts her to maintain her purity, and also to maintain her standard unsullied by prostitution. Sir, Texas has never been prostituted. If she were incapable of vindicating her rights here, through her rep- resentatives, the collective wisdom of Texas, in her deliberative assemblies, will have the proposition submitted to them, and Texas, through her agents, then can say whether it is conformable to her wish that she should relinquish her rights to this territory, or whether she will maintain it. It will be a matter of discretion with her, and I trust she will not stoop so low as to humiliate or degrade herself to a state of prostitution. Texas is surrounded on the one hand by sympathy, and on the other by menace and reproach. Honorable gentlemen have threatened her with ex- pulsion from her territory, which she claims, and which none other has ever claimed. Sir, it is said that Texas has asserted her right to that territory, or has preferred a claim to it. She has never preferred a claim to it. In the face of eight millions
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